Tag Archives: patterns

“So typical!” she thought after having gotten the message about his running late:

“Traffic. B there in 5. Smiley face.”

The part about the smiley face was written out. In the very moment of reading his message, she was not tickled by his charm at all. The joke felt stale and smart-Alec-y, and it was probably aimed at her expense:

Well! He remembered that but not that I despise tardiness. “So disrespectful!” she muttered to herself.

She’d already parked the car and taken the stairs. A lanky man going the opposite way in the staircase overheard her. Behind his bifocals, he blinked rapidly and hugged the wall a little more. A tourist! She, for a brief moment, considered covering it up: by pretending to be on her cell phone or improvising a tune to which the overheard words could belong. But she was too annoyed. She clammed up until alone again, on the next flight of stairs.

What irritated her the most, it seemed, was that after all these years, he hadn’t changed at all. She had. She had had to! He’d altered the course of their lives with a single request to end to their marriage four years ago. She moved herself across the country, as if her shame would lessen with no mutual witnesses around. She’d gotten tired to wrench her guts out in front of friends. Their sympathy was too short of a consolation anyway, with nothing on the other side of it — but an even more agitated loneliness.

In a new city, she could blame all the hardships on her relocation. That way the divorce would come secondary; and on the list of common fears — moving, death, break-ups, public speaking — some of hers would be at least on the same plank. Divorce or departure. Departure or divorce. They became interchangeable causes for every new obstacle for a while. But eventually, each claimed its own time of day. Departure took the daylight, while nights were consumed by the consequences of the divorce. She started going to bed earlier.

When things weren’t well, she’d text-message the ex. It was a habit of the fingers — not of the heart. She took him bouncing between her little devastations and the recently increasing occurrences of her gratitude. No matter her original intention though, they always ended up bickering. Recycling became their long-distance pattern. But it seemed to her — and she knew she wasn’t alone in this — they both found comfort in that repetition, how ever painful the results.

“Fuck that, D! What do YOU want?” her stepbrother Tommy, with whom she’d grown close through all of this, would say. The man never slept; and when she called in the midst of her own insomnia, she’d often catch him painting at sunrise in New York, never having gone to bed at all.

Tommy was adamant that no good would come from her constant contact with the ex. “All you’re doing is delaying the pain, man. He won’t change. It’s all about you!”

But that was exactly was she feared. It was easier to fish for an apology — or at least a recognition — in her interactions with the ex: some sort of an acknowledgement of all that former goodness of hers that he had taken for granted, by ending it. It was as if she’d wanted him to love and lose again (someone else, of course, because even she wasn’t dumb enough to go in for seconds), just so he could learn to miss her. It was the only route to getting even that she had known.

The ex and she continued fighting. For weeks afterward, she’d wait for an apology. There would be substantial silence (in which she began to see glimpses of a lighter life, a better self). After a timeout though, his messages would come in flurries, a few days in a row: Some woman wore her perfume on the subway. He’d found an old photo in his college notebook. A mutual friend had asked about her. He missed her legs, her hair… By what right?!

In the beginning, she did respond reflexively, as if flattered by the contact. But when his tone turned whiny — he “missed her”, “wanted her” — she got irritated fast: Who’s fault was that, exactly?! And when he began insinuating at his lust, she would get struck with guilt toward his new woman. The pattern grew old, like the baby blanket from her own childhood which she’d been saving for her firstborn. The firstborn took its time happening while the blanket became a reminder of yet another one of her inadequacies. She began to feel hard of forgiveness. There was no way around it: He’d made a mistake; and she, still picking up the pieces on the receiving end, failed to let go.

“I mean: Do you even want him back?” Tommy sounded flabbergasted. He seemed so different from her! Stronger.

But Tommy was different: He belonged to a separate genetic line of bold spirits: artists, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, marine biologists, heros. At family gatherings, they all came in with colorful stories about the world in which neither habit nor fear seemingly played any role. Her people were hospital administrators and medical assistants, for as long as she remembered. Being concerned with records of pain, causes and possible treatments was their daily bread.

There are days when the ego wakes up early on me, and like a petulant child nagging his mother for junk food in line at a supermarket, it gets going before I decide to open my eyes and admit to the start of a new day:

“But, but, but…” it whines, throws fits and manipulates itself into more convenient emotions — the junk food for the human spirit:

– Contempt: That one always promises to be easier; but so obvious its wastefulness, I haven’t tried my hand at it — EVER!

– Anger: A real dilettante, claiming its expertise when leading to solutions; but then, it always runs out of air on me, long before the finish line. Oh, but it has tempted me enough times to have learned my lesson, by now; so, I don’t follow its lead.

– Expectation of justice: I might as well resign to never allow another human to affect me, because such an expectation — is a moot point, fo’ sure; and it certainly cannot be an objective in any of my actions.

– Self-pity: I’m altogether allergic to that sucker, so I haven’t seen its face around here, for ages. Same goes for jealousy: In my universe, it’s a leper I prefer to keep at ten-foot distance.

But take this morning: I woke up tired.

“First of all: I am tired. I am true of heart!

And also: You are tired. You’re true of heart!” *

So, that must be a starting point, for most of us. A common ground, eh? Perhaps, that is why many prefer to be in love; for in those glorious beginnings of an affair, it gives you reasons to get up. Exhaustion does not seem to matter.

(The work? The work surely comes later. The ghosts come out to play:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man…”

The patterns play hide-and-go-seek for a while; but when the lovers lose their libido at trying to impress each other, the hidden qualities crawl out:

“You’re it!”

So, in comes the work.)

But take this morning: I woke up tired — and not in love, with another. For a while, I tossed my exhausted limbs in bed and dismissed the temptations of the ego to start weaving its through-line for this new day. I checked the phone: No visible commitments. Where to start, I thought.

How about: I start with gratitude?

So, I got up, mostly out of habit, got the coffee going. The first obvious choice of action — was to clear the space. I’m in control of it, this year — my space; but even that takes some discipline. Because I no longer can blame any outer — or inner — clutter on my bunkmate. My space equals my freedom equals my problem. My responsibility.

“It’s a question of discipline. When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.” **

And so, I did that, mostly out of habit, but secretly letting the faces of my beloveds slip into my memory. Perhaps, they were in the things that I shifted around my space. These things either tended to originate from all my loves or to lead me back to them, in unpredictable ways:

There was that one, on the furthest coast, who mattered the most — she was heard from, yesternight: She always justified my love. My brothers, scattered all over the continent because they are that much restless of a kind — they all came forth throughout the last few days. The lovelies in this city, where, for whatever reason, it’s much easier to get distracted: They too made their adoration for me audible.

And then, there was a boy: A boy from last night, who with his youth and beauty, insisted that even though I was tired — I was true of heart:

“I thought you were really cool,” he said, sitting underneath a yellow light on the floor of his hallway. “But I didn’t know you’d be so different.”

(He would later make me laugh, make me lighter; tease me, teach me; make me sit still — underneath the yellow light, on the floor of his hallway — while respecting my tiredness. He was not a love. Not yet. But oh, so lovely he was, in this city where, for whatever reason, it’s so much easier to get distracted. Perhaps, it was the late hour of the night… (Or was it the early hour of the morning? I never know the difference.) Perhaps it was the late hour of the night, but the mutual ghosts did not come to play:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man…”

But I was already too tired and true of heart — too wise, beyond my years — to not notice the patterns peeking out their turned-up noses from underneath the door of his apartment.)

But take this morning: I woke up tired, not in love with another, but slowly, seemingly in love — with so many. I continued to shift things around, organizing the space, getting ready to do my daily work. Slowly, the sleepiness evaporated. The exhaustion — suddenly didn’t matter.

I was loved, I thought, or at least adored — by many. And they were all so magnificent: These hearts, equally tired and true, searching for something just a little better than survival. And whenever they chose to remember me, they gave me reasons to get up. My tribe. My comrades. My witnesses. My better selves. They made me matter, rebuilding me every single time I was too tired to start a new day:

Crawled out of my skin last night, hung it on the door knob and, till this very gloomy morning, I haven’t put it back on yet. Stark naked I write to you, my comrades — souls all over the world who share with me no private history but the common ground of humanity. And every once in a while, completely unexpected (for my art needs no reason to exist), I hear your “Gotcha!” echo via an electronic transmission; and in that moment, you’ve gotta know: you repair my very heart. So: Fuck yeah! Fuck da! Thank you for reading!

Still stripped and skinless, superimposed by the little girl I once was a few decades ago in a country that exists no longer, I am about to have a lil’ tete-a-tete on the topic of grief. ‘Cause you see, you magnificent co-participants in the utter chaos of living — I’ve got me a shit load o’ that. (“A shit load,” by the way, is V’s democratic solution between the metric system of her Motha‘ Russia — and the rest of the world — and that other one she still doesn’t know how to convert to.)

I haven’t lived long, my comrades, but certainly a lot; enough to accumulate some losses. I’ve lived through deaths, heartbreaks, break-ups and a divorce. I’ve commemorated violence — others’ and my own — by jotting it down on my skin. I’ve been thrown around by historical turmoil and have survived poverty. And although I still insist on calling upon humanity’s goodness, I have seen it at its very worst.

And that is exactly where grief comes from: From its mama — the Loss. I wiki-ed it for you, my stubbornly good people; and according to wiki-wiki, it’s “a multi-faceted emotion.” A free-for-all, eh? And emotional twofer. A Round Table for your every feeling. (A’right, V: Settle down with those metaphors!) Numbness, blame, sadness and anger — yep, I’ve done ‘em all, a shit load of each, to be precise. But the part of grief that I still seem to be unable to reach — like the only dream I deem to be impossible — is acceptance.

I gotta tell you, I have managed my forgiveness of others, “for they know not what they do,” right? (But that IS a funny one though: forgiveness. For me, it rests somewhere between mercy and the resignation of justice. In other words, only when I’ve suffered enough and when I want to be justified or carry the weight of the mistakes no longer — I cry uncle and I forgive. Sometimes, forgiveness results in dismissing the offender entirely: leaving him to his own devices and never wanting to hear from him again. Other times, my forgiveness is more peaceful: It permits for a friendship after the shit storm settles; but boy, do I tread carefully there.)

But acceptance: That one — is a bit of a moody bitch for V. Just when I think I’ve tranquilized the ghosts of my past, some current player wakes them with his misbehavior; and off I go: reliving the emotional free-for-all of griefs I thought have already exorcised and put to sleep. (“Hush, hush, you little monsters!”) And if I’ve learned anything from my relationship with my beloved shrink: these above mentioned players — the hooligans that set me off — are here for a reason. They are part of V’s pattern. Kinda like that Britney song: “Oops, I Did it Again!” — right? So, until I figure my shit out — the hooligans will continue to pop-up out of my Pandora’s Box. (Does that sound naughty, or is it just me?)

So, I am starting to gain some unsettling glimpses at the correlation between acceptance and self-forgiveness.

“DING-DING-DING-DING-DING!”

— I can forgive others: Check!

— I can forgive my life for its sorrows: Check!

— But can I forgive myself for my choosing all the wrong hooligans in the past chapters of my life? Not so fast, you Russian gypsy! Thus far, it’s been seemingly easier — messier, but easier — for the vagabond in me to pack-up and run away. I am a woman with no country after all! But alas, to stay and to deal with the hand I’ve been given (or rather, I’ve given myself) — that, my comrades, has been much harder. Because at the end of it: I must hold myself accountable. Isn’t much easier to blame others; to parade your scars and bad deals in order to earn the compassion of your witnesses? Or to suspend your self-forgiveness via embarrassment? Yep. But in the end — I’m SO gonna go existentialist on my own ass here (no pun intended) — it’s between you and you. Or rather, it’s between me and me.

Well, that’s enough psychology for one Saturday morning, nyet? I’m gonna go put my skin back on and get to work, my adored boys ‘n’ girls. But in the mean time, allow me to leave you with this little bit of wisdom by another foreign comrade-in-arms. (Shit! We, foreigners, do like to get heavy!):